Weekly Comic Reviews

Maybe I should just commit to doing these on Friday so they’ll technically be up on time. I doubt that’d work, as eventually I’d be moving to Saturday to force an adherance to the deadline and that would just be sad. So as it stands, these are a day late. So sue me, but don’t, because I’m broke.

As you can see, it was kind of a short week, so I’m going to focus my energy on a select few titles, hoping to really drive my point home if possible.

BLACKEST NIGHT # 8

Finally this mother-trucker comes to a conclusion. I haven’t been the biggest proponent of this title, as I think that trying to shoehorn it into the company wide crossover niche has destroyed any and all subtlety and nuance that could have been present were it done as a crossover event in the GL books the way Sinestro Corps War was done.

I’m sure those who have liked the book so far will go absolutely apeshit over this issue as well. I mean, it’s got everything that they expect out of the event in great quantity, so why wouldn’t they love it. For those of us who have been along for the ride wondering if the bizarre plot twists and deviations from established characterization would somehow make sense when the arc came to a close, unfortunately we get no such payoff.

I think that is my problem with this whole event. I know Geoff Johns can write the hell out of Green Lantern. The monthly title has consistently shown that from the very moment he relaunched it with that shiny # 1 a few years back. That much is not up for debate, he’ll be seen as the definitive Green Lantern writer of the last twenty-five years hands down, simply because he’s elevated the character to a place where he’s more of a flagship character than Superman, if you look at sales and interest.

The problem with Blackest Night is that it tries to use the elements that make Geoff Johns such a good writer but the end product is rushed and mangled due to the restraints of containing the bulk of the story to a single book. It’s the same problem that happened back with Infinite Crisis. If you read the collected edition of that book, nothing makes any sense because key bits are in other books. The same thing feels like it happened here. I feel like with a book like this, cohesion is key, and they could have either made GL and GLC official parts of the story, and allowed Geoff to weave the narrative across the mini-series as well as the two ongoings, thus giving the narrative some space to breathe and flow organically.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. With this issue, I feel like everything was abrupt and oddly presented, and aside from the “wow factor” that comes with some amazing spash page and a few resurrected heroes, the final issue, much like the rest of the series, seems to fall just a little bit flat.

X-MEN SECOND COMING # 1

Time for another x-event. It’s been a while since Messiah Complex, but a lot has happened since then and it feels like it’s all been leading to this. I have to say that I wish it would have gotten here sooner because so much of the X-books in the last few years has felt like repeated filler. Like they were treading water getting ready for this event. Does it measure up?

Not really.

I think my main problem with the book had to do with Finch’s art, which compared to his prior work on New Avengers and Moon Knight looks like it was just plain rushed. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks he made the art so shoddy as a middle finger to Marvel as he hopped on the bus over to DC, but I think most of it was honestly a stylistic choice, though one that I don’t agree with.

I’ve been reading the x-books up to this point and I still didn’t quite get parts of the book. I didn’t know who the hell the smiley faced mercenaries were, and the reveal at the end didn’t seem like much of a shocker having read the X-Force series.

Maybe it’s just off to a slow start, as I wasn’t impressed, but things need to pick up soon if this is going to measure up to Messiah Complex, as I straight up loved that crossover.

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That’s it for this week. Next week should be a bigger week, and I’ll hopefully have the reviews up on an actual Thursday this time around. Until then…